After touching the lowest levels on record before Thanksgiving, rates are now about .1% higher than that. The attached chart shows rates from December 2009 back to April 1971, when Freddie Mac started officially tracking 30 year mortgage rates. The high was in October 1981, when borrowers paid an average of 2.3% points to buy a rate down to 18.45%. The low was November 25, 2009, when borrowers averaged 0.7% points to buy a rate down to 4.78% - note that 4.78% with 0.7% points was also achieved April 2 and April 30, 2009. These are rates on conforming loans up to $417,000 for single family homes with 20% or more equity in the property. Current rates for super conforming rates up to $729,750 and jumbo rates up to $2m are below.

Rates change daily as mortgage bonds trade. Rates held lows coming into this week due to scares about Dubai's ability to service their debt, and as that subsided, we end the week with the best jobs report since the recession began in December 2007: only 11,000 private sector jobs were lost in November and unemployment decreased from 10.2% to 10%. Still a staggering unemployment rate but a move down is significant, as is the decrease in job losses. Of course bond markets sell off on positive economic news like this, and when that happens, yields (or rates) rise.

The biggest scheduled news next week is November Retail Sales on Friday which will capture Black Friday figures and confirm whether initial holiday shopping reports are high or low. The initial National Retail Federation report showed that more people spent less to kick off holiday season: 195m shoppers visited stores and websites vs. 172m last year, but average spending dropped to $343.31 per person from $372.57 last year. Total spending reached an estimated $41.2 billion. This key measure of consumer strength carries a lot of weight with investors this time of year, so stock and bond/rate markets will surely swing on this data.

CONFORMING RATES ($200,000 - $417,000) - 1 POINT

30 Year: 4.875% (5.02% APR)

FHA 30 Year: 4.875% (5.08% APR)

5/1 ARM: 4.0% (4.13% APR)

SUPER-CONFORMING RATES ($417,001 to $729,750 cap by county) - 1 POINT

30 Year: 5.25% (5.39% APR)

FHA 30 Year: 5.125% (5.25% APR)

5/1 ARM: 4.5% (4.63% APR)

JUMBO RATES ($625,500 ? $3,500,000) - 1 POINT

30 Year: 5.625% to 6.0% (5.78% to 6.275% APR)

10/1 ARM: 6.25% (6.39% APR)

5/1 ARM: 5.25% (5.43% APR)